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enlarge Aren’t you sick and tired of hearing the phony arguments that Republicans make when it comes to the EPA? How they are killing jobs and America because regulations and regulatory bodies are socialist and other such nonsense. It’s easier for the right to just yell ‘free markets rule’ instead of being honest whenever important government agencies are brought up in election cycles. Kevin Drum Is the EPA a Job Killing Machine? (Hint: No.): Is the EPA a job-killing machine? On the off chance that empirical evidence still matters to anyone, Dave Roberts summarizes a bit of recent research into this question from the Economic Policy Institute. First up, Isaac Shapiro takes a look at the costs and benefit of several new EPA rules: The dollar value of the benefits of the major rules finalized or proposed by the EPA so far during the Obama administration exceeds the rules’ costs by an exceptionally wide margin. Health benefits in terms of lives saved and illnesses avoided will be enormous. Expressed in 2010 dollars: The combined annual benefits from all final rules exceed their costs by $32 billion to $142 billion a year. The benefit/cost ratio ranges from 4-to-1 to 22-to-1. The combined annual benefit s from four proposed rules examined here exceed their costs by $160 billion to $440 billion a year. The benefit/cost ratio ranges from 12-to-1 to 32-to-1. OK, fine: the rules will save lives and improve our health. But at what cost in the tidal wave of jobs lost just to get a bit of mercury and soot out of the air? EPI’s Josh Bivens runs the numbers for one of EPA’s biggest initiatives, the “air toxics” rule. Here’s the final tabulation: — If you want to, you can still object to these rules. Maybe you can argue that they’re distortionary in some way, or that there are cheaper ways of getting the same results. Maybe. But even if the rules aren’t perfect, their benefits far exceed their costs and they actually produce additional jobs for the economy. Dave sums things up: Conservatives are hiding behind abstractions — job-killing big-government blah-blah — but don’t be fooled. They are not protecting “the economy” or “jobs.” They are protecting a specific set of polluting industries, at the expense of the public interest. Put that horsesh*t in any ideological serving dish you want. It still stinks. Not only does the EPA make us healthier, but it increases the number of jobs we have. Grover Norquist’s starve the beast ideology as well as ‘ defund the left ‘ has been a very effective up to this point since Conservative activists came onto the scene in the 80′s. They were as radical back then as the Tea Party is now. Too bad their agenda makes us less safer, healthier and economically secure.